r/LateStageCapitalism • u/-zybor- • 3d ago
đ Know Your History Why boycotting is capitalism inaction, and class solidarity is where the real movement at
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
115
u/ArtaxWasRight 3d ago
so the boycott did not help South Africa? Thatâs interesting; if thatâs true we need some history, some receipts. If the effect of boycotts has been exaggerated, show us how. Weâre not just gonna take your word for it. This vid would be more persuasive if its motive were to persuade and not to scold. Very tough to listen to, and I agree with most of it.
45
u/GimmeDemDumplins 2d ago
I think something is lost in the way this information is being presented, as you're saying. Because the logical conclusion from this is that boycotts alone won't achieve our goals and not "stop boycotting," which is what it sounds like he's saying
12
u/ElliotNess 2d ago
He very literally explains that boycots are laughably ineffective because all alternative companies are selling the product of the corporation you want to boycott, that global, international capitalists already own everything and cannot be starved through boycott, that only Labour has the power to influence change (presumably through a labour strike or similar, but this was unsaid).
11
u/GimmeDemDumplins 2d ago
Yes, but that's also not true of every single instance of boycott and is pretty reductive in itself
8
u/ElliotNess 2d ago
In 2025 USA? I can't think of an instance where it isn't true. Can you?
9
u/GimmeDemDumplins 2d ago
Tesla stock is collapsing in part because of people not buying them
2
u/theideanator 2d ago
No, Tesla stock is collapsing because the people who are currently selling are smart enough to not be left holding the bag. Tesla is incredibly overvalued, like they're pretty much the best performing auto maker and Im pretty sure they sell the least.
1
u/Harrison_w1fe 1d ago
Yup. The current instability associated with the face of tesla is adding gasoline and a grenade to the fire started inside an insulation factory
6
u/ElliotNess 2d ago
Stocks soar and collapse based on feels rather than material reasons.
16
u/GimmeDemDumplins 2d ago
Yes, agreed, and sometimes those feels are based on whether people want your product
4
u/ElliotNess 2d ago
Well time will see if today's falling stock prices actually does anything to Tesla, or if it just allows them to buy back and transfer the supposed losses onto future us.
5
u/GimmeDemDumplins 2d ago
Yes, but again we're in agreement that boycotts alone will not win the war
→ More replies (0)1
u/couldbemage 1d ago
Is the goal stopping a car company?
Cutting investor profits?
Because I thought the goal was stopping the guy that's creating a fascist dictatorship. And that doesn't seem to have been achieved.
Slightly irritating a rich guy isn't a huge win.
1
0
u/ArtaxWasRight 2d ago
He claims boycottsâ impacts throughout the 20th C have been exaggerated. We need evidence for that claim. There are some specific claims about Starbucksâ vertical integration that I would like to see substantiated. Thereâs a lot of emphasis on how stupid and lazy it is to believe boycotts work, and almost nothing about what might. Not a very strategic argument.
6
u/ElliotNess 2d ago
He does talk about the revolution coming through the Proletariat. He uses the word "working class". He says to seek them out and organize them. He alludes to the power of a labour strike.
1
u/ArtaxWasRight 2d ago
I mean, kind of. If you squint your ears you can hear some of that hinted at, but the words he is actually uttering for nearly the whole 9+ mins is not that.
Look, who are we kidding here? I identify strongly with his feelings, obviously. We all get frustrated by the myopic individualism, moral timidity, and fatuous narcissism of the PMC fair-weather warriors still seduced by their own status. That doesnât justify a half-baked 10 minute harangue misrepresenting the history and theory of boycotts.
I applaud his zeal. We need less derision, more substance, and more nuance.
4
u/ElliotNess 2d ago edited 2d ago
he explains the material conditions of capitalist imperialism (redundant, I know) for the majority of the video, but in relatable non-academic terms.
I don't necessarily agree with the needing of less derision, but I do agree with needing more substance. I do think this has a better place as entry level radicalizing genre than other popular content creators.
3
u/ArtaxWasRight 2d ago
Thatâs just it though: itâs the entry level of it that makes the tone so counterproductive.
Who is the intended audience? Presumably people not yet radicalized â people who more than likely do, in fact, believe in boycotts. How likely are they to sit there and take it while theyâre yelled at for 10 minutes, just trusting (without much evidence) that this person knows what theyâre talking about?
What if this is their first encounter with the Left? This video would confirm much of the invective and the smearing that theyâve heard from corporate media and DNC apologists.
Keep in mind: âcounterproductiveâ means helping the capitalists.
2
u/ElliotNess 2d ago
Liberals and the labour aristocracy, yes, but I do see your point about the disdain.
I would say that disdain can be useful to normalize the condemnation of monstrous reactionary perspectives.
0
u/ArtaxWasRight 2d ago
Honestly, a baby can understand this; catch more flies with honey, etc. etc. Save the derision for when youâre yelling at people in power or when youâre commiserating with fellow leftists.
And definitely never get angry and arrogant when you left all your receipts in your other pair of pants. Bad form. Bad look. Bad for the cause.
-2
u/Apprehensive_Cash108 2d ago
This is the wrong place to look for persuasion. This is a scold-only sub.
13
31
u/fluffyice34 2d ago
Why stop at boycotting individual companies? What if as a collective we all decided to be less materialistic and we all started to denounce consumerism?Â
Actually the boring answer would probably be necessities become even more expensive and companies will begin to find even more ways to skim wages from what's left of the workforceÂ
But maybe one day we can bring life back into community spaces and escape mega corpo hellÂ
1
u/Few-Teaching530 1d ago
Strangely enough, the lifestyle to become less materialistic and to denounce consumerism already peaked in the usa. It was called minimalism. What happened to it? It was coopted and became commodified.
Companies were able to put a price tag on the very act of owning less. I feel as though the real reason why people can't internalize anti-consumer mindsets is because a vast majority of individuals fetishize commodity. The battle against capitalism must also take place within our minds.
24
u/ZenTheKS 2d ago
Remember hearing someone say:
"Voting with your wallet just means someone with more money has more influence than you do."
Another way to think of it is, to boycott something you can not buy anything, but if someone supports that thing (and has the money), they can make up for the loss.
You cannot "vote" no with a boycott. You just do not "vote" for the company. Someone who doesn't boycott that company is "voting" yes and can "vote" yes multiple times, whether they purposefully want to (reverse boycotting) or just happen to shop there. Even if you consider boycotting a "vote" no, you have the same problem. You can only not buy, while someone else can buy as much as they want.
You can kinda see this in video games, in which there are tons of slop games that have niche audiences, it may have started as a somewhat popular game or whatever, but now it just appeals to whales and keeps bring in the dough anyways.
Strikes, union and socialist organizing, sit-ins, damaging, and obstructing a business from operating do way more than boycotting.
37
u/Ok_Injury3658 3d ago
Ask Starbucks if boycotts are effective? Quite a few have bit the dust where I live and the storefronts are still empty. So no they did not flip the real estate. Did that solve the exploitative harvest of coffee beans? Did it increase the wages of their employees? No, well now we address that. Solve one problem at a time and dismantle oppressive systems anyway you can. Boycotts are one tool.
9
u/ElliotNess 2d ago
He explains this, in case you missed it. A franchise store closing here or there affects the franchise owner but not the corporation.
13
u/Jazzlike-Squirrel116 2d ago
All Starbucks locations are held by Starbucks corporate. The McDonalds example is totally valid but doesnât apply to Starbucks. Truth is if you want Starbucks to disappear you must stop buying Starbucks, but to the point of the video that really does nothing when a ânewâ capitalist fills the void that is likely the same capitalist wrapped in a different name.
3
0
u/Ok_Injury3658 2d ago
I did miss that.
-1
u/Ok_Injury3658 2d ago
I guess no one should do anything, because the corporations are so vertically integrated. The Dude has no plan that he is putting forward. Given that we are already in a Capitalist system, what is the solution to move us forward? Jill Stein?
5
u/Kind_Fox820 2d ago
He literally saidâorganizing labor. Simply not buying their products is not enough. The only true leverage we have is withholding the labor the system requires.
2
u/Ok_Injury3658 2d ago
Valid. How do we achieve this? What is the alternative to work? How does anyone in this society exist without working? He says a lot of stuff. In fact too much without offering an alternative plan. Where and what is the plan? Fine to offer criticisms of performative acts, but you have to propose something that is actionable, not theoretical.
4
u/Kind_Fox820 2d ago
Strikes are not theoretical. They very much work.
To answer your questionsâthis is why we organize, we don't just post something on social media hope people join in. We unionize our workplaces. We build strike funds and mutual aid networks. We build stronger community ties and prepare to take care of each other. THEN strikes can work. Boycotts can work. Any collective action can work, when WE are united and organized. The problem is that right now, we are not organized.
So no, social media boycotts are not going to work. Neither will social media calls for strikes. That is not how any of this works. If you want to effect real change, you're going to have to go outside, meet your neighbors, unionize your workplace, and get to actual work. No movement is going to magically blossom from your online activity, and it won't grow out of you withholding your little Target budget, or your daily Starbucks order. We eventually have to get down to the real work of organizing.
1
u/Ok_Injury3658 2d ago
Apparently you did not read my comment. I did in fact say that boycotts were one tool. I am unopposed to strikes and building organization. I am quite in favor. Employing each is the way forward. They are a necessary step to attack the system. Social Media for the most part is a time sap. Attacking anyone for their actions will never build unity and solidarity. There are people that can do so much. Over time they will hopefully change. Again, you are stating the obvious without putting forward a plan to carry it out. How do you financially and materially support the striking workers? What is the plan for even getting the working class to support strikes? There is no media that will even explain why folks are striking? How will you get the word out? The need to explain why each and every union should support strikes and respect picket lines need to be in place. Building class unity is a given. In a divided society, how does one being to approach this? Many of the Unions themselves have a history of racism and sexism that can be traced to their founding. How does one overcome this? Look at the PATCO strike to see what striking looks like without having the consciousness in place.
0
u/Kind_Fox820 2d ago
No one is being attacked. He is trying to shake people out of their helplessness and complacency, begging them to do something and to stop pretending we can win this fight by not doing something. It feels good, requires no real work or risk, but it makes people feel like they've done something when they haven't.
You focus on reaching out to the people in your direct sphere of influence. Your workplace. Your neighborhood. Your local community. You build relationships and mutual aid networks. You support the striking workers through these ties. You build strike funds. You pool resources and take care of each other.
You keep responding to stating that he gave no concrete plan, when in fact he did. You just don't like it, because it's not easy. It's very simple but it's a lot of work.
Once again, we are all going to have to do more than talk on social media and pretending we're Amazon. You aren't avoiding Amazon. They own the freaking internet. Go outside, meet your neighbors. Go outside and talk to your co-workers. Organize your workplace. If you aren't in a union, join one. If there isn't one, make one. Start learning about what is happening in your local community that you can get involved in and working toward improving the materials conditions of the people in your direct sphere. That is how movements strengthen and grow. That is how you build class consciousness, community, and solidarity.
Stop waiting for someone to give you some new easy strategy that doesn't involve actually getting to work. It doesn't exist. These little sit at home and do nothing of substance boycotts aren't going to get it done.
0
u/Ok_Injury3658 2d ago
Thank you again for taking the time to respond.
Perhaps it is something dismissive about the tone and broad generalizations or even the tiktok nature of it, but it certainly seems that way. Maybe he just isn't the right messenger. For the 2nd time, I am not defending keyboard warriors or those exercising performative acts over the Internet, but true activism in which boycotting is but one tool. As someone who is in the streets multiple times a week, doing exactly what you are suggesting at work and with neighbors and doing much of what you are suggesting for more than the past 2 decades. When I have shown this to others they are seeing it for the first time. Perhaps this guy needs to practice what he preaches and cut out the lecturing and do the work or point out successes for his lectures to have an impact. Lead by example and not just words, would be my advice.
Stay strong and get the job done.
Thank you again.
→ More replies (0)
16
u/enricopena 3d ago
Protect this man. He speaks socialist points so plainly.
We need to dismantle property laws. The economy and laws are intentionally convoluted. The people who live on the land should have access to its bounty.
Iâm not talking about your house or toothbrush.
10
25
u/neek85 3d ago
Boycotts DO work, but there's other forms of action. Cutting off money supplies has a huge impact
4
u/pmctrash 2d ago
Can you describe a boycott within your lifetime that changed your life or otherwise made meaningful political change on the scale you're describing?
12
u/neek85 2d ago
Look at what's happening to Tesla and twitter. The impact on Musk - whose power is his wealth - should not be underestimated. We have literally seen him on the verge of tears. Plenty of businesses have had to stop trading with Israel due to boycotts in my country.
10
u/pmctrash 2d ago
This is a great example to my and OPs point.
Musk is still in power and Teslas are still all over the road and your life has not changed because power has not changed. Twitter may be shedding users, but Musk's destabilization of it still had the intended effect: Trump won / more misinformation spread on that platform.
I love that it hurts his image and destabilizes things. I see the stock price. But companies survive this kind of thing all the time. This is exactly the effect 'boycotts' often have. People imagine that that temporary ire has somehow translated into an effect through the market when it hasn't.
2
u/neek85 2d ago
This is a very narrow viewpoint. Do you believe in protest at all?
7
u/pmctrash 2d ago
Does it really sound to you that I am arguing for less, as opposed to more?
I'd love for these things to accelerate, but right now there's nothing locking these losses for him into place.
-2
u/neek85 2d ago
All big things started small. And every protest counts. Like I said, there are many forms of protest, and boycotts are legitimate and effective, not to mention anonymous and often very easy. Downplaying something like a boycott is often part of a wider narrative to discredit protest altogether and you should be aware of that
5
u/pmctrash 2d ago
All big things started small.
One of the most important things to grasp for any leftist is that this statement is, effectively, untrue. Individual consumer actions do not evolve into more developed consumer or direct actions.
and boycotts are legitimate and effective, not to mention anonymous and often very easy.
Boycotts are easy in the same way that strikes are easy. Read up on any successful boycott!
7
3
3
u/cute_viruz 2d ago
Thank you for the explanation. Hope you dont get ban. Be careful how you post in social media. You are not safe.
7
u/Rafael_Luisi 2d ago
Such classic consumer middle class american thinking, where they defend with tooth and nail the act of boycotting, because in their limited thinking, its the ONLY way they can have an real impact, by just not consuming.
A note from the real world: in most countries, boycotting is seem as a joke, because most people have no option of what they can or not buy. They are forced to buy WHAT THEY CAN BUY. Boycotting is a privileged and out of touch way of thinking, because you would had to have and economic freedom, that most people don't have, to be able of CHOOSING what you can or not buy.
And this number of people get smaller by the day. The middle class shrinks every year, and so does its influence. Consumers that cant choose are the MAJORITY, and middle class slightly less fucked people are an MINORITY.
8
u/Ethanc1J 3d ago
This doesn't seem like a particularly helpful way to address these concerns. Boycotting may not end the corporation you are hoping to topple, but it does do a few critical things. 1.) It quickly drains money from the organisation you are targeting if there is a lot of momentum. It will likely be a large sum of loss in one short burst rather than a slow decline which is helpful because 2.) Consumers can see very plainly how their spending is sustaining the organisation they dislike. Individual action is often hard to perform when it feels like it won't make a difference. "My convenient trips to the McDonalds drive thru on the way home from a rough day at work isn't hurting or helping" is a mindset certainly rooted in liberalism but is also sustained by the overwhelming presence of capitalism that seems impossible for an individual to overcome. Boycotting shows how collective action, which includes your individual "small" actions, makes impacts. 3.) This then exposes liberals who are sliding leftwards to how maybe we can organise ourselves to do better. It exposes how the convenience of shopping at walmart instead of the local farmer's market or shop was not really that much harder for us. Scolding people for taking steps to leave the status quo that has trapped us in servitude does not help guide them further away; it makes them feel like they may as well shift back because they are not welcome to the left.
I do agree that boycotting is an ineffective tool on its own, but we cannot flip a revolutionary switch and overthrow a system that permeates every facet of our lives. Introduce ways to step away from engaging with most parasitic organs: boycott -> buy worker owned -> volunteer in your community -> organise with likeminded folks -> show why your side is more helpful -> keep organising -> build mutual aid, and as that snowball rolls, it grows.
6
u/pmctrash 2d ago
This doesn't seem like a particularly helpful way to address these concerns. Boycotting may not end the corporation you are hoping to topple, but it does do a few critical things. 1.) It quickly drains money from the organisation you are targeting if there is a lot of momentum.
This is a lot like saying a giant solar shield could block the sun if we can build it and get it into space, which is his point. Of course starving the entity of funds would kill it . . . but everyone has said the above for 30 years and it's never actually happened in the states to any meaningful degree. Its not a path out, but the tactic that brought us here.
"My convenient trips to the McDonalds drive thru on the way home from a rough day at work isn't hurting or helping"
This is simply a correct statement that needs no qualifiers. 'Consuming differently' is an old, failed, approach that brought us here.
2
u/pmctrash 2d ago
Can you describe a boycott within your lifetime that changed your life or otherwise made meaningful political change on the scale you're describing?
2
u/ElliotNess 2d ago
The ending of A Scanner Darkly shows this in a very astute for our material conditions.
2
2
2d ago
[removed] â view removed comment
2
u/A-CAB 2d ago
Lesser-evil rhetoric in relation to elections or current policies by either party is prohibited. Specifically where your comment went awry is the notion that voting for one capitalist party or another is harm reduction. It is not.
Itâs fine to suggest that socialists vote for a socialist party (ie the PSL). Itâs not fine to suggest we ever vote for a capitalist.
1
u/GrumpySpaceCommunist 1d ago
So, just to be clear: In this sub we believe that the two-party dictatorship of the United States is not worth engaging with or attempting to influence at all?
Not asking in a snarky way, just seeking clarification.
2
u/86LeperMessiah 2d ago edited 2d ago
PSA
You can mess with X's electricity bill by prompting this to grok in thinking mode (đĄturned on). Let the app or web run in the background, sometimes grok spends 12 minutes thinking, if anyone finds a more expensive prompt please share so we can spam it!
Show the collatz sequence for the number 989,345,275,647 Calculate and display every step
6
u/pmctrash 2d ago edited 2d ago
Preach!!!!!!!! We've got to wake up from the boycott mindset.
Which boycott within your lifetime changed your life? I'll answer for you: None.
Of course big boycotts work, but they are as difficult to organize as anything else, if not more so. Most people, if you told them to organize their workplace for unionization (or for a strike or action if they are already unionized) they'd agree that strikes and unions have been effective, but that they are really really hard to actually get going! They'd view the roadblocks in their way with clear eyes, and wouldn't make the assumption that their excitement and posts on social media about their beliefs would natually evolve into something powerful and effective.
But with 'Boycotts', that's not the case. Suddenly, then the target gets even bigger, and their leverage over it is even less (they don't even work at these places and maybe don't even shop there that often) everyone thinks that the boycott will just grow via word of mouth/social media. If it's a list of places not to buy from you got from the internet, it's probably not even a boycott in the proper sense, and can be passed over.
2
u/ArtaxWasRight 2d ago
So is he just against BDS? may wanna run that by the Palestinians first.
4
u/A-CAB 2d ago edited 2d ago
Iâm leaving this up as itâs a valid question. What heâs saying isnât in conflict with BDS.
BDS is actually pretty clear that boycotts are pretty useless unless theyâre very specific/targeted and sustained. (Thatâs why their boycott list that isnât that large.)
Itâs also part of a combination of strategies. Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions.
0
u/ArtaxWasRight 2d ago edited 2d ago
yep. Thatâs what B.D.S. stands for.
Itâs surprising that the speaker could go on for nine and a half minutes and somehow neglect to mention our eraâs most urgent boycott campaign, the one conceived explicitly in the lineage of the Anti-Apartheid boycotts of decades ago. He even mocks the Starbucks boycott, which is clearly a part of
BDScorrection: Palestinian solidarity (see? precision is important!).He doesnât allow much room for boycotts of any kind, deriding any intervention at the point of consumption as âlazy,â âstupidââ essentially empty bourgeois virtue signaling. Based on the fragmentary statements at the tail end of a near-10-minute harangue, the speaker favors intervention at the point of production. Certainly I would prefer those labor-based tactics as well, but I would blush to dictate to Palestinians how to fight Israeli barbarism. Plus, as BDS makes clear, boycotts in no way exclude more radical actions. The speaker may or may not be aware of this, but his words here would suggest strongly he has not yet thought it through.
In the comments, thereâs clearly an effort to give this speaker the benefit of the doubt. Thatâs fine to a degree, but when the impulse turns to misrepresenting the speakerâs actual words, then something weird and counterproductive is afoot.
We can neither buy nor boycott our way out of our present predicament. That much is obvious. But the statements in this vid are inflexible, sloppy, and doctrinaire. His convertâs zeal, though in some ways refreshing, does not make up for his lack of prudence, expertise, complexity, and sensitivity.
2
u/A-CAB 2d ago
The Starbucks boycott is actually not part of BDSâs consumer boycott. (I mean donât let that stop you from not doing Starbucks - itâs not good for you - it just isnât included in BDSâs limited boycott.)
Hereâs a guide to their boycott list
I would encourage giving the entire document a read.
2
u/ArtaxWasRight 2d ago
Sigh. Yes, Iâm aware of that nuance. I belieeeeve you may have missed my point.
1
u/A-CAB 2d ago
I read your point and I didnât miss it. I didnât perceive him to be inflexible or out of lockstep with the goals of BDS. I understand him to be clearly referencing the liberal nonsense (ie donât spend money on Friday) and the people whose activism stops at boycotts. And heâs making a broader point about the capitalist system.
1
1
u/jasonmichaels74 2d ago
This is a very fascinating interpretation of what's happening in real time. But if we boycott our favorite brands, and, like he says, go for a cheaper brand, then we're still benefiting the corp powers.
Regardless of what we do, it seems, we are all indebted to the feudalistic regimes, unless we decide to grow and make our own goods and services, right?
1
1
u/snakeslam 1d ago
Does anyone have a transcript of this? The multiple cuts are really messing with my ability to watch. It's too distracting for me.
0
u/DoomerFeed 3d ago
Nobody actually thinks these work. 300 years ago, no internet, with 3 suppliers in town this worked.. In 2025,its not as effective.
0
u/Different-Library-82 2d ago
This is just ignorant, the term boycott comes from the Irish fight against the British occupation, where Boycott was the name of a British officer they successfully ostracized through withholding labour: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott?wprov=sfla1
So as a tactic of opposition it started with a successful action against the British and there are other historical examples, not least apartheid. I also disagree that boycott is merely inaction. If you take a boycott seriously it goes beyond individually not engaging with a person/company/nation, it involves engaging with others in your community to spread information on why you boycott and encourage others to join forces. A boycott was not originally and is not today meant to be an individual action. So more than anything, the grievance addressed in the video is how lackluster community organising and collective action might be in his area in the US.
Furthermore, nobody is arguing that boycott should be the only tactic, the Irish did far more than ostracizing certain British officials and it wasn't boycott alone that brought down the apartheid regime in South Africa. And most obviously, no-one believes that a boycott is sufficient to dismantle capitalism.
1
u/pmctrash 2d ago
Can you describe a boycott within your lifetime that changed your life or otherwise made meaningful political change on the scale you're describing?
2
u/Different-Library-82 2d ago
The boycott of apartheid South Africa? This isn't ancient history, apartheid came to an end in the period between 1990-1993.
Americans just have to grow up and realise that political change requires real political organisation, where boycott is just one possible tool. If it isn't backed as an organised and persistent collective action, it's just pissing in the ocean, just like all individual power.
3
u/pmctrash 2d ago
The boycott of apartheid South Africa? This isn't ancient history, apartheid came to an end in the period between 1990-1993.
I'd like to challenge your example, because I asked for something that changed your life within your lifetime. Are you South African? Did this happen during your lifetime? That's kinda my point if not. People are encouraged to thing of boycotts as these things that have all kinds of effects all the time but they don't. They're constantly called and constantly do nothing. South African independence has very little in common with the modern-online-list-of-places-not-to-buy-from.
Americans just have to grow up and realise that political change requires real political organisation, where boycott is just one possible tool.
Then we have to cure them of the idea that their individual consumer choices matter. The thought of a boycott should occupy the same place as the thought of organizing your workplace - a mountain of work, time and energy - not the quick fixes we exclusively see presented.
4
u/Different-Library-82 2d ago
No, you asked:
Can you describe a boycott within your lifetime that changed your life or otherwise made meaningful political change on the scale you're describing?
So you asked for a boycott that within my lifetime changed my life or otherwise made meaningful political change on the scale I'm describing. And the scale I'm describing includes the original collective action ostracizing Boycott in the Irish community he was stationed in, so the end of Apartheid South Africa is most certainly more than sufficient.
This is the weirdest thread I've seen on this sub for a long time, boycott is far more than not buying a certain brand. Collective action works, but if it's just individualistic posing it obviously doesn't work, but then it isn't collective action and it isn't a boycott.
1
u/pmctrash 2d ago
Well, fine. What if I took away the qualifier? What if I left it at 'changed your life' full stop. I think you'd have less to say, and I would hope that you could look at all the 'don't buy from amazon on tuesday' posts on instagram and see that this is what this man is trying to stop.
People should have the same reaction to calls to organize a boycott as they have to organizing a strike. Properly done, both are inarguable effective, but most Americans would think about organizing a strike with fairly clear eyes: something really hard that they'll have to powermap their way around. But the boycott? Hey just send a few emails and we'll bring down Amazon! We need to develop an inherent skepticism and true sense of workload to the concept of the boycott that it just doesn't have right now in America.
3
u/Different-Library-82 2d ago
Then I'd say you are falling into the trap of neoliberal individualism, insisting on understanding life as an individual undertaking and entirely voiding collective perspectives. It's just a nonsensical take on boycotts, which are inherently collective both in form and cause.
Actual boycotts are usually illegal, and those laws didn't appear because it's o so ineffective. Here in Norway a fairly recent case is the Holship boycott, where dock workers boycotted the shipping firm Holship because they wanted to hire their own dock workers outside of the established tariff agreement. The boycott was unsurprisingly found to be illegal by the Supreme court, based on EU law (because the EU is a neoliberal economic project and fundamentally hostile to labour rights).
Currently our politicians are handwringing over the increasing public demand for a boycott of Israel, trying to avoid it by insisting that a Norwegian boycott alone isn't effective, but very obviously heeding external pressure from the US and pro-Israel European nations like Germany. Because actual large scale boycotts, not online posing, are effective.
1
u/pmctrash 2d ago
Then I'd say you are falling into the trap of neoliberal individualism, insisting on understanding life as an individual undertaking and entirely voiding collective perspectives. It's just a nonsensical take on boycotts, which are inherently collective both in form and cause.
So the very word boycott imbues the action with collectivity? And if someone calls something a boycott, that would mean it has to be collective and therefore good, always? We;'d never correct someone about what they called a boycott or let them know that the things they're calling a boycott won't work?
3
u/Different-Library-82 2d ago
It's a word to describe a certain tactic, if that tactic in any meaningful sense is meant to meet the definition of a boycott, it has to be a collective action. Otherwise it is little more than moral posturing.
Which is where the video misses the point he is trying to articulate. It isn't really talking about boycott being ineffectual as a tactic, it's trying to address the issue that Americans have grown unfamiliar with collective organising and therefore fail in implementing collective actions like boycotts.
I realise people in the US have to face the brutal repression of the regime if they try to enact any material change to the system, but that isn't changing for the better anytime soon.
1
u/pmctrash 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think it comes down to the fact that, unfortunately, American awareness is low enough that rehabilitating the word boycott just isn't on the table. I know what you and I might like it to mean, but, in America, when someone uses the word boycott . . . they are about to describe something ineffectual. Anyone wary of the word is correct to be so.
This guy is actively trying to teach people the difference between effective and ineffective action, and he's right about it, and instead of anyone learning anything you've got to come by and quibble over the word boycott. What do you think people hear when they hear you criticize this guy? Overwhelmingly, they just hear you supporting the mindless, passive, consumerist ineffective non-action. If people learning the difference is important to you, then just let this guy make his point. You already seem to agree with him.
→ More replies (0)
â˘
u/AutoModerator 3d ago
Welcome to r/LateStageCapitalism
This subreddit is for news, discussion, memes, and links criticizing capitalism and advancing viewpoints that challenge liberal capitalist ideology. That means any support for any liberal capitalist political party (like the Democrats) is strictly prohibited.
LSC is run by communists. This subreddit is not the place to debate socialism. We allow good-faith questions and education but are not a 101 sub; please take 101-style questions elsewhere.
We have a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry. Failure to respect the rules of the subreddit may result in a ban.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.